My workflow procedure as requested by Rob.

[jiro]

Willie,

I'm gonna give it a look mate, but how is it any better than ACR? Or Bridge?

That I cannot quantify for you, Mark. I don't bother working in ACR anymore since I understand how LR workflow seamlessly works for me. I still haven't figure out its full potential but when it comes to photo editing workflow I am really impressed with LR. If you download the trial at adobe.com and register with them, I think they will allow you to view their tutorials for free for a limited time. Hope this helps, mate. Good luck.

[Nicola]

many thanks Willie for this pages!!!
this is the peak of your great contribution to this community
Nicola

[jiro]

many thanks Willie for this pages!!!
this is the peak of your great contribution to this community
Nicola

Thank you very much, Nicola. Happy to be of use to the CiC community.

[Jo Brown]

I'd like to add my thanks to you Willie for your tutorial. Very, very helpful to me. Lightroom for me has become indispensable when processing. Your explanation of your experience with using Lightroom and then going back to use ACR is exactly how I experience it. I agree it is the intuitive nature of Lightroom that is so appealing - even addicting!.

I was very interested to note that you did not apply sharpening in Lightroom. Is that true for you in every case? I really like your B&W step and will have to try it. Is doing this step the reason you don't sharpen in Lightroom?

A feature I really like in Lightroom - and use consistently - are the Luminance controls in the HSL panel.

Thanks again!
Jo

[jiro]

I'd like to add my thanks to you Willie for your tutorial. Very, very helpful to me. Lightroom for me has become indispensable when processing. Your explanation of your experience with using Lightroom and then going back to use ACR is exactly how I experience it. I agree it is the intuitive nature of Lightroom that is so appealing - even addicting!.

I was very interested to note that you did not apply sharpening in Lightroom. Is that true for you in every case? I really like your B&W step and will have to try it. Is doing this step the reason you don't sharpen in Lightroom?

A feature I really like in Lightroom - and use consistently - are the Luminance controls in the HSL panel.

Thanks again!
Jo

Thanks, Jo. If I only have LR to use to edit my images then I will certainly use its built-in sharpening tools. However, noticing the felxibility that I have in combining layers and selective masking of Photoshop, I tend to do my final sharpening in Photoshop rather than in LR. I still have to resize my images for uploading to flickr so if I sharpen now while I'm using LR I will get a lot of artifacts or additional pixel data that is not in the image because I am sharpening the image in multiple times. I do also find the noise reduction feature of LR to be very robust and excellent considering that it only has about 5 sliders to play around with it. So, my workflow is to reduce any noise in LR then export the image to Photoshop for resizing and final sharpening. it makes sense to me. Right now, yes, I do use this process most of the time now on all the images I am posting here at CiC since I started using this technique that I found out. Hope this helps, Jo.

[absurd21]

I was always looking for a workflow that I could try. Now, I found it! I'll try this when I get home.

Big thanks, Jiro.


Leonardo

[jiro]

I was always looking for a workflow that I could try. Now, I found it! I'll try this when I get home.

Big thanks, Jiro.


Leonardo

You're most welcome, Leonardo.

[Johnem]

Hi Willie, very informative thread!!- I saved it to my desktop as soon as I saw it. Its interesting to see you start in LR and then go to CS5, luckily I have both LR and CS4 to try this workflow out. I always found LR to be light in the tools department, and actually haven't used it much, combining it with PS is a great idea- I will give it a try.

Also some online help is here http://www.photoshopsupport.com/ligh...tutorials.html

[jiro]

Hi Willie, very informative thread!!- I saved it to my desktop as soon as I saw it. Its interesting to see you start in LR and then go to CS5, luckily I have both LR and CS4 to try this workflow out. I always found LR to be light in the tools department, and actually haven't used it much, combining it with PS is a great idea- I will give it a try.

Also some online help is here http://www.photoshopsupport.com/ligh...tutorials.html

Thanks, John.

[jyddentz]

Wow, very stunning!! Great job. This makes me want to try out using Lightroom. I do have it but never have tried it. thank you for posting your workflow. Very helpful indeed.

[jiro]

Wow, very stunning!! Great job. This makes me want to try out using Lightroom. I do have it but never have tried it. thank you for posting your workflow. Very helpful indeed.

You're most welcome, Jim.

[rob marshall]

Jiro

I've had a go at this on one of my own shots, and I'm having some difficulty producing any obvious results. I suspect that's because I always shoot in RAW and using CS5 and having some experience with it, I'm able to get the most out of the RAW image processing. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this makes a difference to some processing work-flows, but proper RAW processing takes care of so many of the fundamental editing needs that you really shouldn't have to do very much in Photoshop, apart from touch-up editing etc.

I wouldn't mind a copy of your RAW, if that's OK. I'd like to see the original, and put it through what I normally do (which BTW is pretty much what you detailed above). As with all these things, an important component is what was actually captured in the camera. http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php

[jiro]

Jiro

I've had a go at this on one of my own shots, and I'm having some difficulty producing any obvious results. I suspect that's because I always shoot in RAW and using CS5 and having some experience with it, I'm able to get the most out of the RAW image processing. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this makes a difference to some processing work-flows, but proper RAW processing takes care of so many of the fundamental editing needs that you really shouldn't have to do very much in Photoshop, apart from touch-up editing etc.

I wouldn't mind a copy of your RAW, if that's OK. I'd like to see the original, and put it through what I normally do (which BTW is pretty much what you detailed above). As with all these things, an important component is what was actually captured in the camera. http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php

Try this file for your practice, Rob: http://www.mediafire.com/?0fvaems14ym09er

This one is not edited in any way nor processed in LR so this is the actual RAW file you need. As I have explained, all my recent posts are processed using this technique so I know it would work. It's just a matter of adjusting some of it to suit your preference. Thanks.

If you want, you can send me one of your RAW files and I can do an edit and we compare. Sounds OK?

[rob marshall]

If you want, you can send me one of your RAW files and I can do an edit and we compare. Sounds OK?

OK.

This is an old shot done on a Canon 30D. This is the best I can do with it in RAW processing, with some selective levels adjustment in CS5 to make it pop a bit more. But I haven't applied your technique. Be interesting to see what you can do. here is the link for the RAW (it's a DNG so you shouldn't have any problems). I reset the RAW back to 'in camera'. http://www.mediafire.com/?7ga0vcrl783v576

[jiro]

Here you go, Rob:



The 16-bit .dng file was converted to 16-bit .tiff then processed in LR 3. Exported to Photoshop CS5 still as a 16-bit .tiff file, applied the b&w version and change the blending mode to luminosity. Merged the 2 layers and then applied a sharpening layer. Combined the 2 layers again then saved as an 8-bit jpeg file for uploading to Flickr. The 8-bit jpeg file was reduced in size to 1024 pixels on the height dimension and uploaded to Flickr.

[rob marshall]

OK, Jiro

You gave me a slightly different shot, but it's about the same. This was the original before I did anything in RAW (so it's straight from your camera)



This is after my RAW processing. I cropped it quite a bit as the part of the shot with the bird is very good (great colours and a nice bird), but the rest of the shot doesn't really add very much.



Then, all I did in CS5 was adjust the levels to make it brighter, and sharpened it.

[rob marshall]

Here you go, Rob:



The 16-bit .dng file was converted to 16-bit .tiff then processed in LR 3. Exported to Photoshop CS5 still as a 16-bit .tiff file, applied the b&w version and change the blending mode to luminosity. Merged the 2 layers and then applied a sharpening layer. Combined the 2 layers again then saved as an 8-bit jpeg file for uploading to Flickr. The 8-bit jpeg file was reduced in size to 1024 pixels on the height dimension and uploaded to Flickr.

That's pretty good, Jiro. It pops more than my version, but perhaps it does look a bit harsher. Not sure. What does everyone else think?

[jiro]

Looks pretty good to me, too. If you go further and apply the b&w layer, what it will do is to further enhance the contrast since the luminosity command will only get the contrast detail and add it to the original layer. Your camera has a lot of pixels to start with. Mine is only 6 MP's that is why this procedure helps a lot with my images. If you want some ultra sharp images, then doing this process will help you further achieve that.

[Chong]

Now this is what you call "LEARNING". Thank you so much Willie for the enlightening explanation of your workflow. I wish you could also post up your workflow in Mono (if that is not asking too much ) Have a nice weekend everyone! C H E E R S ! ! !

[rob marshall]

Jiro

I thought I'd add your process to my version of your parrot shot. It does pop more. I think you could probably get the same results with some careful PP, but I agree with you it's a good, quick way to get a better result.



And here's a blow-up screengrab of the same version to show the detail and colour.